Message from Associate University Librarian for Collection Development and Management, regarding Collections

August 31, 2006

Fiscal Year 2007 Collections Budget Outlook

The Libraries are faced with a large budget reduction in the 2007 fiscal year, as is the entire university. This reduction is having a major impact on the services we can provide as well as the collections we acquire and maintain. In the area of collections, the reduction to the permanent budget is $800,000, but with the 2007 inflation projection on our existing serials the effective reduction is $1,255,000.
We have received a one-time special allocation of $198,166 that will be used for book purchases.

In view of these reductions, the Libraries have been obliged to undertake substantial changes in the
number of resources we can offer this year. While we have tried to protect electronic resources to
the degree possible, we have canceled some databases and both duplicative and unique print
subscriptions.

In addition to the $198,166 for book purchases mentioned above, we will only be able to spend about
$750.00 of our gift and endowment funds for books and other one-time purchases since these funds will
also be used to maintain other vital library services. The available funding for books and other
one-time purchases is about half of what we spent last year in this category.

Because most serial renewals must be made in September, decisions on cancellations had to be made
over the summer. Given the size of the reduction and the timing, we have not consulted as closely
with faculty as we would have preferred. We have relied on the collective wisdom of our librarians to
carry this process out in a fair and equitable fashion. All of our users will inevitably face a
noticeably diminished array of resources in this year.

Robert Sewell,
Associate University Librarian for Collection Development and Management